This report explores how patterns of household income and individual pay inequality differ across the Northern regions and the extent to which Northern city-regions are becoming more spatially polarised in terms of household income and segregated in terms of economic inactivity over time.

It also considers whether different levels of polarisation correlate to social and community outcomes in city-regions. Overall, levels of household income and individual pay inequality in the North are lower than the UK average, particularly compared to the Greater South East. But between 1998 and 2008 pay inequality increased in the North, in line with wider UK trends. It is fairer up North, but equality is being eroded over time.